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Spoon-Balls

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    Streaks and the "flow" state

    in Billikens.com Main Board

    Posted

    7 hours ago, Minerva N. Owl said:

    This is a somewhat long “think-piece”, so it might not be to the taste of those who like to limit ideas to 140 characters.

    Basketball, especially NCAA Div 1 Basketball, is frequently a game of streaks. We see it all the time: the Bills go on a streak, and suddenly they’re up 10 or 12 or more; then, after cruising for a bit, they lose focus. Nothing goes in. The defense breaks down. A bad pass, then a bad foul, and all of a sudden a big lead is squandered.

    We’ve seen this pattern of “streaks” in each of the three games this year. We also saw it last year, and just about every year. Of course, last year, there were a number of big games in which a bad streak in the final minutes of the game had the Bills lose a game they probably should have won.

    Part of what was positive about the Memphis game (Tue Nov 15) was that, although Memphis went on a streak with 4 minutes left in the game, the Bills were able to stem the tide.

    Streaks are not unique to basketball. Anyone who has played horseshoes or golf or cornhole/bags or darts or any of a number of such games knows the experience when one is on a streak: an individual player or an entire team somehow enters the “flow” state, and everything seems to work.

    In basketball games, the crowd notices when a team has entered the “flow” state, and a buzz of excitement fills the air. Those are special moments.

    The leading expert on the “flow” state is a Hungarian psychologist with a strange name: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. His classic study is titled Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. He presents his central ideas about “flow” in this 18-minute TED talk.

    Part of what has me thinking about “flow” – in addition to the streakiness of the Bills in the last couple games – is several comments made by the Wiz.

    Caveat: I’ve benefited from reading the Wiz for many years. I'm grateful for his perspective, and I consider his pre-game reports "must reads" that allow me to enjoy each game in a more detailed, focused manner.

    With that said, I want to take issue with, or at least qualify, something the Wiz wrote recently.

    In the string titled, “Ratings and Rankings and Polls … Oh My”, the Wiz wrote that “most computer based rankings are living, breathing entities”. There’s an innocent sense in which the Wiz is using a metaphor: he’s responding to questions that people ask him about rankings, especially the puzzle that sometimes SLU wins a game against a higher ranked team, but the subsequent movement in the poll is not quite what’s expected. The comment by the Wiz makes it clear that he is using a sort of metaphor: rankings “change by the hour as games are being played”. In other words, he is not literally saying that the computer is alive, or that computers breath.

    Computer programs, no matter how sophisticated, given the current state of technology, are definitely NOT “living, breathing entities”.

     

     

    If we pursue this line of thought very far, we enter into pretty deep philosophical waters: What is it to be a living, breathing entity? What is life? To what extent can computers model life? To what extent can a quality (such as the “flow” state) be captured in a quantitative formula?

    Without facing these questions head on, I think it’s worth noticing that some of what Csikszentmihalyi has to say on these matters is insightful. For example, Csikszentmihalyi identifies the following features of the “flow” state:

    1. Complete concentration on the task;
    2. Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback;
    3. Transformation of time;
    4. The experience is intrinsically rewarding;
    5. Effortlessness and ease;
    6. There is a balance between challenge and skills;
    7. Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination;
    8. There is a feeling of control over the task.

    Csikszentmihalyi points to two ways in which one can enter or exit the flow state.  From one side, there is a movement through worry, anxiety, and arousal. On the other side, there is a movement from boredom, relaxation, and control.

    It’s my impression that in almost every instance in which the Bills exit the flow state, they do so by becoming too relaxed, and they move toward sloppiness and perhaps boredom. Then, when they try to re-enter the flow state, they get stuck in anxiety and worry.

    My hunch is that this lines up with what the Wiz means regarding his summary of the season so far: “inconsistently consistent” … “up and down” … “hot and cold”. I’m not sure whether the Wiz’s computer has a formula for those phrases. My hunch is that these are qualities, not quantifiables that are measurable with a computer metric. With that said, I don’t think descriptions of the "flow state" -- and the other states that surround flow -- are simply pure emotional mush. Rather, part of what’s involved in being a “living, breathing entity” of the human sort is that, while we can’t quite snap our fingers and move into the flow state, athletes and coaches can have some self-awareness of the team’s current state. When things become too relaxed, one can recognize the need to improve self-control; when one slips into anxiety and worry, one can re-gain a sense of self-mastery and confidence.

    In my judgment, the formulas and analysis that the Wiz provides are very helpful for providing one perspective; at the same time, I find myself wondering whether this level of analysis can and should be complemented by attending to individual and team performance in terms of the flow-state as described by Csikszentmihalyi. If the Bills are going to learn how to navigate the “peaks and valleys” mentioned by the Wiz, my hunch is that they’ll need both approaches: analysis in terms of quantitative metrics and awareness of qualitative states of presence and engagement.

    Thoughts?

    As a musician, your post resonates. I loved Pixar's take on this.

    Flow really gets at the heart of universal themes like order and chaos. Too much order (i.e. anxiety, worry, rumination) and you're stunted. Too much chaos, and you have no control.

    There's a "divine balance" in life in religious speak, the "Force" in Star Wars, the "Yin and Yang" in Eastern philosophies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang). Anyone watch the latest season of Cobra Kai? Ignatian spirituality, which many of us alumni are familiar with, also emphasizes this balance with regards to the inner life. Psychodynamic and psychological literature has emphasized this since the days of Freud. The "entropic brain theory," growing in credibility within neuroscience circles, also plays into universal themes of order/chaos. 

    The Bills over Eville by 18

    in Billikens.com Main Board

    Posted

    On 11/8/2022 at 5:38 PM, The Wiz said:

    Keys to the game..... Eville has a decent starting 5 but therein lies their problem. They have little depth.   As for the Bills, they need to make some 3s. One of the things, I will be watching this season is the 3 vs 2 efficiency.  You multiply the 3P% by 1.5 and that gives you an equivalency to the 2P%.  In the last game our 2 pt%  was 58% ,,,our 3p% equivalency was 48%...58% vs 48% means you should be taking more 2s.     39%+ from the arc is the breakeven point.  Of course this is just 1 game but because we will be taking a large volume of 3P shots this year, it bears watching.

    Prescient 

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    OT: Midtown Development

    in Billikens.com Main Board

    Posted

    On 7/13/2021 at 3:59 PM, bauman said:

    MY question is what is the plan and who is the planner?  When the location was sold a few years back it was bought by a guy who owned a medical limo service and a used car lot on S Kingshighway with no previous interest in anything like Humphrey's.  Since that time, he has done nothing with the property.  He had no connection to Jan Mangelsdorf, who was a great supporter of Billiken sports!

    Just wanted to report that the wife and I had been visiting St. Louis several weeks ago, and just happened to drop by SLU's campus while the Humphrey's front doors were open. The couple inside cleaning it up were extremely nice folk, apparently restaurant owners in Clayton. One of them had parents who met at Humphreys while at SLU, so it sounds like Humphreys has special value for these people and they truly want to bring it back for SLU community. Humphreys meant a lot when I was at SLU as well, so that nearly brought tears to my eyes seeing them putting some elbow grease in and hand scrubbing the floor and bar area all by themselves. Will be very excited to visit when it reopens and I am in town again. 

    Humphreys is in good hands again everyone. 

    cgeldmacher, Zink, majerus mojo and 7 others like this

    Around the A10 20-21 season

    in Billikens.com Main Board

    Posted

    43 minutes ago, slu72 said:

    Here’s praying no one associated with the team is seriously affected by this plague. French said it laid him up for 5 weeks. Also, since the women’s team can’t seem to bounce back, and now the men’s team has it, it makes you wonder if the Fetz doesn’t need to be doused in Lysol and Clorox. 

    French's game has seemed off this season. I'm wondering how much his physical abilities are continuing to be chronically affected by Covid....

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